'Star Wars' Not Coming to Next-Gen Disc

May 23, 2007

Despite persistent online speculation, wishful thinking, and rumors, the six "Star Wars" films will not be coming to either Blu-ray Disc or HD DVD anytime soon. While both next-gen HD formats have a lot of catching up to do as far as issuing popular titles that are more than a couple of years old, the epic space series that began more than 30 years ago has been mentioned as a possible come-on to provide a big boost to the Blu-ray camp for more than a year.

The rumors did have something tangible behind them: what appeared to be a listing for the films on Amazon.com. But that turned out to be a "placeholder" page for when, and if, the George Lucas movies are ever released on HD disc, according to PC World.

The movie studio said, "Lucasfilm Ltd. has no plans to release any of the Star Wars movies on Blu-ray or HD DVD. Listings on Amazon.com or any other Web site are purely speculative and erroneous."

If and when the films are released, it likely will be on Blu-ray (at least to begin with) since Lucasfilm's distributor is Twentieth Century Fox, a Blu-ray proponent. But keep in mind that Lucas proved to be one of the last holdouts to release content on standard DVD several years ago.